Psychologist explains women's choice to live with cats through psychoanalysis

The cat as a 'transitional object'

Claude-Hélène Mayer of the University of Johannesburg examined why some women prefer to share their lives with cats rather than people, combining her own family history, the fates of two early 20th-century women artists, and psychoanalysis. The article was published in the journal Current Psychology, as reported by Gazeta.Ru.

Three women's fates

The starting point was the researcher's childhood in Germany in the 1970s–1990s: her grandmother, who had survived two world wars, the flight from Silesia, and the early death of her husband, lived alone surrounded by cats, and her days were organized around a feline routine — feedings on schedule, Friday trips to the butcher, evening walks, and Saturday shifts at the shelter.

Claudel and John

The second pillar of the work was the psychobiographies of two Frenchwomen. The sculptor Camille Claudel, muse and lover of Auguste Rodin, withdrew into seclusion after their breakup, destroyed some of her works, and spent the rest of her life in a psychiatric hospital; among her surviving works is the bronze sculpture 'The Cat.' The painter Gwen John, who also loved Rodin, lived alone with cats and repeatedly painted portraits of her first cat Edgar Quinet, named after a Paris street. For both women, the relationship with Rodin ended in collapse, and both took refuge in solitude among cats.

What the theory showed

The theoretical framework was Donald Winnicott's idea of the 'transitional object' and object relations theory. A transitional object is a thing such as a blanket or a toy to which a small child becomes attached in order to cope with anxiety; in adults, pets can take on this role. According to Mayer's conclusions, the cat fills the space between a woman's inner world and external reality: after loss, rejection, or the collapse of a relationship, the animal helps one survive, stay sane, and cope with pain and loneliness.

Practical mechanisms

More prosaic mechanisms are also at work. Cats give structure to the day: feedings, shopping, and cooking add up to a soothing ritual. In addition, cats are more independent than dogs, and cat owners, according to previous studies, are more independent: a dog demands sociability, whereas a cat feels comfortable in solitude.

Method and context

Mayer calls her method feminist autoethnography: science is interwoven with personal experience, and the conclusions rest on three women's fates. The mocking image of the 'cat lady' — a spinster and an eccentric — is left in the past by the work. 'I am reproached (what a monstrous crime!) for having lived my life with cats,' wrote Claudel, whose bronze cat outlived both the reproaches and its creator. Earlier, as the outlet notes, scientists named the simplest way to extend the life of a domestic cat.